Drawn in the style of Thomas Nast, the illustrations bring the historical New York Democratic Tiger back to life as a new symbol of Democratic reform. In his original political cartoons in the 1800’s Nast had turned the Tiger, the original symbol of the Democrats, against the Party to criticize its corruption.

In the illustration above, Transparency: Zero Tolerance for Corruption, the new Democratic Tiger, the New York Tiger of Reform, has come back to Nast’s Coliseum to attack Pedro Espada and New York’s modern culture of corruption. Before attacking Espada, the Tiger had already vanquished two former state senators, MonserRat and Bruno.

On the Coliseum wall is a quote from FDR’s campaign for the New York State Senate at the beginning of his political career. 100 years ago,
Roosevelt ran against the corruption in Albany, yet a century later, very little has changed.

The New York Tiger is the symbol of the Bill Samuels Campaign and his goal to make the New York legislature the best in the country. The Donkey, which has been used to represent the Democratic Party for over 100 years, was invented as a negative symbol by Republican satirist Thomas Nast to brand Democrats as dumb, stubborn opponents of the Civil War.